


Game Boy Link Cables

by DuckGWR



Series: < 1000 word Nintendo oneshots [3]
Category: Nintendo, Original Work
Genre: Gameboy - Freeform, Nintendo - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-25
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2018-01-02 13:45:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuckGWR/pseuds/DuckGWR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I never got to visit my cousin much, but when I did I dug the Game Boy I brought out of my baggage, sat on the floor with her, and happily helped her waste our collective childhoods through Game Boy Link Cables.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game Boy Link Cables

Christmas, Thanksgiving, and midway through Summer holiday starting when I was 8, that's when my dad would take us to my uncle's house to visit. So three times a year, I packed up everything I would need- clothing and my Game Boy.

Christmas was always my favorite of the visits, because my uncle would find a game that worked with the Link Cable and get two copies, one for me and one for my cousin. That way, we were out of his and my dad's hair while they watched football and we were distracted from the series of unfortunate events that had occurred around Christmas in previous years. But when we would complete the 7 hour drive, I would walk in- probably still playing the Game Boy- and go find my cousin. We would sit down flat on the floor, our respective massive grey bricks in hand, while a green screen, pink and black buttons, a red light, and a weak speaker separated us from the world, the only thing keeping us tied even just to each other a think black cable. I caught my uncle looking at us wistfully sometimes, thinking nothing of it, but I think now he wanted a happy escape too. My cousin and I never had very good times in school or at home, or at anything really, so I think us being able to escape it all was reassuring to my dad and uncle.

So that's how it went for many years, sitting down with a stash of spare double-As and a pile of cartridges and shutting out everything. We had done it since the first time we had met. I must have been about 8 and her 7, when my uncle and dad finally decided it would be a good idea for us to meet. I honestly have no idea why they withheld the visit for so long, thinking back. While at my uncle's house I had asked for some double-A batteries because the four in my Game Boy were nearly dead, and while I was changing out the batteries my cousin had walked in, seen what I was holding, spun on her heels, and ran to her room, emerging with her own Game Boy and sitting tentatively next to me a moment later. So we used her Link Cable as I hadn't thought to bring mine to play a round of Tetris, and that's how it went.

I'm not sure when that ended. I don't know what made us stop playing together, I'm not sure why I never visited her even once I could legally drive to their house. The days spent engrossing ourselves in games turned to only memories sparked when looking at home movies, the ones taken during the visits where you could spy us buried together in our favorite escape while family members I still couldn't tell you the name of were forced to step around us. There were ones taken at the table, which was a no-Game Boy-zone, with us still talking about games, there were ones of us opening new games and accessorizes and ones where family members would hushidly chastise us for wasting our time on games while the cameraman lazily swept from our unknowing forms to whoever was speaking. I don't know why any of it happened, only that it got me here.

I glanced up at her, laying down in the hospital bed. When my uncle had called last night to say what state she was in, I had gotten in my car and driven a good 8 hours from my house, leaving only a note, to get to my uncle's house. I had packed very few things- in fact, the same things I would bring on the happier trips, clothing and my Game Boy. After all the years of shoving in cartridges and Link Cables, all the batteries left in long enough to corrode, all the spills and slips the damn thing had taken, it still stayed strong. Driving south, I pulled the grey brick out and ran my fingers over each and every imperfection that only came with an undying love for an object.

I got to my uncle's place very late, and used my spare key to get in. No one was home, so I had to look for it myself. I found it on a closet shelf, her Game Boy, surrounded with dusty cartridges and a Link Cable still in the slot. I threw it in the backpack I brought along with mine, and ran out of the house to the car.

When I got to the hospital, I used the vague directions my uncle said over the phone to find her room. He had been standing outside her room, massaging the tears and sweat off- or maybe into- his forehead and face with his left hand. He didn't acknowledge my arrival, but I headed into her room anyways. I approached her bed cautiously, as memories of the months spent looking forward to the visits, the days spent counting down with tick marks on a calendar, the hours spent glancing up from the harsh green screen to look at the clock and figure out how long until we get there, the hours spent linked up by cable, the hours spent talking Tetris strategies or Pokémon teams or the quickest routes in Marble Madness flooded my mind.

So I looked back down at my feet, swallowed deeply, sat in the chair facing her bed, set the bag on my lap and pulled out our Game Boys to enjoy our childhood once again, before life, like childhood, was gone forever.

**Author's Note:**

> I picked up a duo of Game Boy Printers and the accompanying link cable, and got this idea. I mostly wrote as I went, and went a sort of bittersweet way like I did with To Landing Sequence.


End file.
